[sen.tence] n [ME, fr. MF, fr. L sententia feeling, opinion, fr. (assumed) sentent-, sentens, irreg. prp. of sentire to feel--more at sense] (14c) 1 obs: opinion; esp: a conclusion given on request or reached after deliberation
2. a: judgment 2a; specif: one formally pronounced by a court or judge in a criminal proceeding and specifying the punishment to be inflicted upon the convict b: the punishment so imposed "serve out a ~" 3 archaic: maxim, saw
4. a: a word, clause, or phrase or a group of clauses or phrases forming a syntactic unit which expresses an assertion, a question, a command, a wish, an exclamation, or the performance of an action, that in writing usu. begins with a capital letter and concludes with appropriate end punctuation, and that in speaking is distinguished by characteristic patterns of stress, pitch, and pauses b: a mathematical or logical statement (as an equation or a proposition) in words or symbols
5: period 2b
[2]sentence vt sen.tenced ; sen.tenc.ing (1592) 1: to impose a sentence on
2: to cause to suffer something "sentenced these most primitive cultures to extinction --E. W. Count"